SSD are a luxury and not a necessity. If one is on a budget, they're better off getting a HDD so the amount save can be used towards a better graphic card.

Only people who haven't used an SSD say that, it's 2014, SSD should be a requirement for any new PC Build now, trust me, the difference it makes with the OS alone is amazing, especially if you use a lot of editing programs that have long start up times.

Put it this way, the PS3 can get a performance boost with an SSD, and that's using old ass SATA1, majority of new motherboards now are SATA3, they're built to expect an SSD so it can use the speed to its advantage, and games that heavily rely on streaming benefit the most with this, games like GTA for example, especially GTAV, the game on a PS3 with an SSD is improved soo much, why would a PC Gamer settle for less??

It's no longer a luxury, it's now cheap enough and getting cheaper as the months go on to the point where if you DON'T have at least ONE SSD in your NEW BUILT COMPUTER, then you've made a stupid choice.

nan0s0ldier

SSD are a luxury and not a necessity. If one is on a budget, they're better off getting a HDD so the amount save can be used towards a better graphic card.

Only people who haven't used an SSD say that, it's 2014, SSD should be a requirement for any new PC Build now, trust me, the difference it makes with the OS alone is amazing, especially if you use a lot of editing programs that have long start up times.

Put it this way, the PS3 can get a performance boost with an SSD, and that's using old ass SATA1, majority of new motherboards now are SATA3, they're built to expect an SSD so it can use the speed to its advantage, and games that heavily rely on streaming benefit the most with this, games like GTA for example, especially GTAV, the game on a PS3 with an SSD is improved soo much, why would a PC Gamer settle for less??

It's no longer a luxury, it's now cheap enough and getting cheaper as the months go on to the point where if you DON'T have at least ONE SSD in your NEW BUILT COMPUTER, then you've made a stupid choice.

I wouldnt say its stupid... And i wouldnt say its a luxury either... Its more of a premium thing. But I agree with Ash its worth it... I only got a 256gb samsung and its amazing. No OS on it though just games like bf4 and watch dogs etc.

Really?DDR3 is more expensive the GDDR5?Isn't GDDR5 newer and a lot better?

Just looked it up and I was right but also wrong at the same time. GDDR5 RAM is more costly to produce than DDR3 RAM, which I already knew, but the price difference is bigger than I expected. PlayStation 4's RAM costs about $28 more in production than Xbox One's solution. On the other hand, the APU used in the Xbone costs $10 more than the one of the Sony console due to the fact that it also uses ESRAM, which is expensive to produce. If we also consider the fact that Xbone's graphic-chip has 50% less Compute Units than the PS4, it looks like Sony's console is commercially the superior product.

I am not sure if GDDR5 RAM is really newer than DDR3 RAM, but it is possible. Before the next-gen consoles were introduced, it was only used for graphic-cards. Which of those two solutions is better depends on the tasks. DDR3 RAM has a lower latency, as you might know. Basically, that means the time it takes to receive writing and reading requests and fulfilling them is shorter. GDDR5 RAM has the advantage of having a far better transfer rate, which means transferring the data is a lot faster once it is past the latency. The latter is the better alternative for gaming when high-resolution textures and various graphical effects are used, which is the case with pretty much every modern title. So, there is a lot of data that has to be processed and that's what the superior transfer rate of GDDR5 is really good at.

I guess that is one reason as to why it isn't so simple to make video games on the One visually as impressive as on the PS4. This is also why I think that Ash may be right that GTAV was delayed for the new systems due to the hiccups Rockstar has, or at least used to have with the Xbox. If Microsoft paid money to Rockstar to make both versions look equally good, then it certainly wouldn't surprise me if they are facing problems in the development.

Stinky12

SSD are a luxury and not a necessity. If one is on a budget, they're better off getting a HDD so the amount save can be used towards a better graphic card.

Only people who haven't used an SSD say that, it's 2014, SSD should be a requirement for any new PC Build now, trust me, the difference it makes with the OS alone is amazing, especially if you use a lot of editing programs that have long start up times.

Put it this way, the PS3 can get a performance boost with an SSD, and that's using old ass SATA1, majority of new motherboards now are SATA3, they're built to expect an SSD so it can use the speed to its advantage, and games that heavily rely on streaming benefit the most with this, games like GTA for example, especially GTAV, the game on a PS3 with an SSD is improved soo much, why would a PC Gamer settle for less??

It's no longer a luxury, it's now cheap enough and getting cheaper as the months go on to the point where if you DON'T have at least ONE SSD in your NEW BUILT COMPUTER, then you've made a stupid choice.

No SSD in a new build = made stupid choices?

If a person is on a tight budget and they want to build a gaming desktop, then a SSD would be out of the question because adding one means

they'll have to sacrafice other components.

A SSD can be added later on when that user has enough money to buy one, but in the mean time they can use a HDD to get by.

Speaking of SSDs, I have 3 of them. 2x 120GB and 1x 240GB all 3 are from Intel.

No SSD in a new build = made stupid choices?If a person is on a tight budget and they want to build a gaming desktop, then a SSD would be out of the question because adding one meansthey'll have to sacrafice other components.

Then they should save up a few extra then to buy one, you can pick up a 128GB SSD for like £30 now, 256GB SSD for £45, that should be more than enough to cover OS and additional programs, it's 2014, if your budget is THAT bad for a PC to the point where you can't edge in an SSD, then you should probably stick to consoles.

Stinky12

WOW, such wisdom. It's 2014 for f*ck's sake, having an SSD is totally mainstream and it's extremely cheap nowadays

Yes SSD has gotten extremely cheap, I remember when a 500GB was like at $500 and now it's around $300 or maybe less.

While they've gotten cheap, the amount spent on a SSD can put a impact on a person's budget and that can make a huge difference in their gaming build. Since this thread is about gaming builds, how about you configure a gaming PC with a SSD and let's see what you can come up with.

Budget set a $600 OS does not need to be included, but if you can add one in, that would be awesome.

@AshSo everyone who has a tight budget should stick to consoles just because they can't afford a SSD?

Nope, I'm saying if you can't budget in a mere £30 to get an additional SSD which will benefit your overall PC performance much more than a GPU will, you've obviously gone wrong somewhere, just my view on the subject, it's 2014, SSD's should be common in PC's being built now, there isn't an excuse anymore to not have at least one small one in there.

NicoandLuis

No SSD in a new build = made stupid choices?
If a person is on a tight budget and they want to build a gaming desktop, then a SSD would be out of the question because adding one means
they'll have to sacrafice other components.

Then they should save up a few extra then to buy one, you can pick up a 128GB SSD for like £30 now, 256GB SSD for £45, that should be more than enough to cover OS and additional programs, it's 2014, if your budget is THAT bad for a PC to the point where you can't edge in an SSD, then you should probably stick to consoles.

And even for a 60GB, that should be more than enough for OS, which is where you need that boost and will notice it most, you can throw Steam on it too, and have it install games to a different drive, that way any cache it needs to do will be done with SSD speeds.

mszigeti

WOW, such wisdom. It's 2014 for f*ck's sake, having an SSD is totally mainstream and it's extremely cheap nowadays

I remember when a 500GB was like at $500 and now it's around $300 or maybe less.

500GB? Why don't you start with a 2TB SSD for that matter? lmao No one needs an 500GB SSD, becouse it isn't for multimedia purposes. 99% of the people uses SSDs between 60-120GB which is more than enough. And yes, those are extremely cheap nowadays. And since we're talking about building a PC for GTA V, an SSD is the first thing which people with a brain would buy. I wouldn't call a PC modern without an SSD in 2014.

You can buy a perfectly good SSD for even $50, which doesn't fill the gap between two different graphics card categories (or CPU), so your argument is invalid.

Stinky12

WOW, such wisdom. It's 2014 for f*ck's sake, having an SSD is totally mainstream and it's extremely cheap nowadays

I remember when a 500GB was like at $500 and now it's around $300 or maybe less.

500GB? Why don't you start with a 2TB SSD for that matter? lmao No one needs an 500GB SSD, becouse it isn't for multimedia purposes. 99% of the people uses SSDs between 60-120GB which is more than enough. And yes, those are extremely cheap nowadays. And since we're talking about building a PC for GTA V, an SSD is the first thing which people with a brain would buy. I wouldn't call a PC modern without an SSD in 2014.

You can buy a perfectly good SSD for even $50, which doesn't fill the gap between two different graphics card categories (or CPU), so your argument is invalid.

Where is the gaming config I've told you to do for $600 bucks with a SSD?

As I've mentioned before if a person is on a budget then grabbing a better video card would be a better choice over a SSD because they can save up and get a SSD later on.

It's much faster to save up for a SSD then to save up for a video card.

So if SSD are mainstream and extremely cheap these days then how come most OEM like Dell, HP, Sony, Samsung, etc, don't include it in all of their computers?

AndreyKva

I don't get why there's such a flame war here about SSD's. Everyone should just chill.

I have been playing with a 360 for the last three years and have recently switched to PC, load times with an HDD are quite impressive to me already.

mszigeti, your arguments about "it's 2014" aren't really valid. Yes, that's the current year, SSD's are becoming cheaper etc. No, that doesn't mean everyone is richer. When I build, I tend to stick to things I NEED, like a GPU, CPU, etc. SSD is an optional luxury, and while I can agree that having one is pretty good (don't have one, have seen videos), I personally don't see why you are fighting for them so bad. The load time difference in most games I have seen isn't big enough to warrant dropping an extra $160 when one is on a tight budget. But then again, switching from a 360 to a PC is already quite impressive in shortening loading times.

RyanBurnsRed

Really?
DDR3 is more expensive the GDDR5?
Isn't GDDR5 newer and a lot better?

Just looked it up and I was right but also wrong at the same time. GDDR5 RAM is more costly to produce than DDR3 RAM, which I already knew, but the price difference is bigger than I expected. PlayStation 4's RAM costs about $28 more in production than Xbox One's solution. On the other hand, the APU used in the Xbone costs $10 more than the one of the Sony console due to the fact that it also uses ESRAM, which is expensive to produce. If we also consider the fact that Xbone's graphic-chip has 50% less Compute Units than the PS4, it looks like Sony's console is commercially the superior product.

I am not sure if GDDR5 RAM is really newer than DDR3 RAM, but it is possible. Before the next-gen consoles were introduced, it was only used for graphic-cards. Which of those two solutions is better depends on the tasks. DDR3 RAM has a lower latency, as you might know. Basically, that means the time it takes to receive writing and reading requests and fulfilling them is shorter. GDDR5 RAM has the advantage of having a far better transfer rate, which means transferring the data is a lot faster once it is past the latency. The latter is the better alternative for gaming when high-resolution textures and various graphical effects are used, which is the case with pretty much every modern title. So, there is a lot of data that has to be processed and that's what the superior transfer rate of GDDR5 is really good at.

I guess that is one reason as to why it isn't so simple to make video games on the One visually as impressive as on the PS4. This is also why I think that Ash may be right that GTAV was delayed for the new systems due to the hiccups Rockstar has, or at least used to have with the Xbox. If Microsoft paid money to Rockstar to make both versions look equally good, then it certainly wouldn't surprise me if they are facing problems in the development.

I'm sure you already know this, but GDDR5 is based off of DDR3. You're right it has a faster transfer rate than DDR3, but it can also move more data. I mean more as in ginormous amounts of data. This makes it perfect for textures.

The thing about the PS4 though, is that only the GPU would benefit from this. So the PS4 using GDDR5 as opposed to the Xbox One using DDR3 makes no difference.

Anyway, DDR4 is already out, and Intel's new line of Haswell-E CPUs releasing this Fall will make use of DDR4.

These "next gen" consoles are behind once again when it comes to PC technology, and they haven't even seen their 1 year anniversary yet.

III974III

SSD are a luxury and not a necessity. If one is on a budget, they're better off getting a HDD so the amount save can be used towards a better graphic card.

Only people who haven't used an SSD say that, it's 2014, SSD should be a requirement for any new PC Build now, trust me, the difference it makes with the OS alone is amazing, especially if you use a lot of editing programs that have long start up times.

Put it this way, the PS3 can get a performance boost with an SSD, and that's using old ass SATA1, majority of new motherboards now are SATA3, they're built to expect an SSD so it can use the speed to its advantage, and games that heavily rely on streaming benefit the most with this, games like GTA for example, especially GTAV, the game on a PS3 with an SSD is improved soo much, why would a PC Gamer settle for less??

It's no longer a luxury, it's now cheap enough and getting cheaper as the months go on to the point where if you DON'T have at least ONE SSD in your NEW BUILT COMPUTER, then you've made a stupid choice.

+1 to that, it makes such a huge difference.

Funny how they all think they are so smart and superior with their SSDs

For the record, I don't recognize myself in this man. My bros use to taunt me as I have one and they don't. Truth be told, I'm pretty sure you'd like it much better if you had one. I wish you one, and a happy life too

Xerukal

SSDs will be great for character switching, in V's specific case. That's about it. All loading times should be nicely optimized for standard 7200rpm HDDs, I would think. Since the pop-in on console is already eliminated if you simply replace the regular console drive with a faster one.

The loading times in IV, EFLC and Max Payne 3 are really damn fast for me, and I have a (severely failing) HDD from 2006.